


I'm Almost Me Again (He's Almost You)

by Just_A_Simple_Writer



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical The Spiral Content (The Magnus Archives), Other, if you understand a single sentence youre doing better than me, this is absolutely NONSENSE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:47:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28381926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_A_Simple_Writer/pseuds/Just_A_Simple_Writer
Summary: It’s only Gerry, really. Everyone else seems to move on without him, as though he had never been there at all, but Gerry doesn’t. Gerry spends so many nights crying and Michael watches and does not go to him.
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Michael Shelley
Comments: 7
Kudos: 21





	I'm Almost Me Again (He's Almost You)

**Author's Note:**

> okay look this is just. pure unadulterated nonsense. run-on sentences galore. repetition out the wazzoey. there is no happy ending its just pain wrapped up in nigh-unreadable sentences.
> 
> enjoy

Michael Shelley is not gone. Perhaps the Michael that exists now, the Michael that is and is not Michael Shelley, perhaps that Michael would like to think that Michael Shelley is gone, but he is not. He is not gone and so he still wants the things he wanted before, still loves the same people, though it is all twisted up, now, and he struggles with it.

He does not get on with the thing that is and is not Michael, though they are somehow still fundamentally the same. It is him and it is not and somehow he is also something else, something small and trapped and hardly human at all, but he will not let go. He is here and he exists, and if his existence is horribly tangled with the existence of something that is like him but not like him then it is better than no existence at all.

He cannot go back to those he loved before, as much as he would like to. He cannot go back to them because the thing that is not quite him does not want to go back to them, and because he does not think they would accept him as he is now. It is sad, but he is too afraid to risk being rejected. He has lost enough, and he cannot lose any more.

So they must believe he is dead, and he hides in the shadows and watches as they grieve.

It’s only Gerry, really. Everyone else seems to move on without him, as though he had never been there at all, but Gerry doesn’t. Gerry spends so many nights crying and Michael watches and does not go to him.

Perhaps he should, but he cannot. He doesn’t know why, he just _can’t_.

The thing that isn’t Michael but tries to be does not like Gerry, and it does not like to think about him at all, and Michael has to keep his own thoughts close to his heart, at least when he is able to have thoughts.

He yearns to be close to someone, and he thinks that perhaps the Michael that is and is not Michael wants that too, though it will not admit it and it will not be close to Gerry, and so he finds other people, strangers whose minds are slipping enough for that which is and isn’t to be satisfied with them.

They are not the same, and they’re not quite what he wants, but he settles into himself and crawls into their beds and they don’t seem to notice that he isn’t quite there at all.

Usually they die afterwards, but Michael doesn’t think he cares. He doesn’t love them, and they don’t love him, so why should he care what happens to them.

Perhaps he wasn’t always this callous, but the thing pretending to be Michael is still part of him, and he knows that _it_ , at least, certainly does not care what happens to the strangers they spend their time with.

He does not often stay the night, and perhaps he does not mean to _this_ time, but he has found a man who is so much like Gerry, and he cannot bring himself to leave. Not yet.

Michael feels more like Michael here, with the man who is not Gerry, and even his apartment is so similar to the apartment Michael spent so many nights in when he was completely Michael.

The man listens to the same music as Gerry, and they sit in the darkness and listen to an album Michael recognises, playing over and over as they talk.

They talk for a long time, and Michael does not know what he says in that time, but he feels as though it is important, and the man who is not Gerry nods like he understands. Michael stays until the man falls asleep and then he stays longer, listening to the music play quietly in the background.

He likes the music, and the thing that is not Michael likes the music, and for a moment they are almost the same, content in their madness and all wrapped up in twisted memories. The thing that is not Michael does not mind being Michael in this moment, and Michael does not mind not being Michael.

They do not kill the man who is not Gerry. They come back to him again and again, though they do not love him and Michael is not sure that he is quite the same as he was when they met him. He still feels so much like a stranger and Michael still does not know his name, not when he tries to think about it.

It does not last, of course. It cannot. Nothing good can last, not for them. They understand each other better now, twisted up with the man who is not Gerry, but they are still not the same and they still cannot be. To be one would be to betray their very existence.

It does not last because one day they come to the apartment of the man who is not Gerry and they find a man who _is_ Gerry, in every way the Gerry that they knew before except that he no longer knows _them_ , and it hurts and it hurts and it hurts and they glitch until they no longer exist for a while.

When they come back they are more divided than they were before. The thing that is not Michael does not want to go back, does not want to risk being known, and Michael cannot bear to know that Gerry is out there but does _not_ know them, and they fight until they almost tear themself apart over it.

They go back, and the man who _is_ Gerry is gone, just the man who is not Gerry left, and he asks them why they left so soon.

_You should have stayed_ , he says, smiling. _You could have met my friend._

_Another time_ , Michael tells him, and _never_ the thing that is not Michael tells him, and he just laughs like he understands.

Another time does not come, and perhaps Michael knew it wouldn’t. His Gerry does not come back to the apartment of the man who is not Gerry, and they do not seek him out, whether he would like to or not. This is a fight that the Michael who is not Michael will always win, and the Michael who was Michael before does not think he minds. Perhaps to be closer with the thing that is him and is not is worth losing someone he isn’t even sure he ever had.

He is not sure when they lose the man who is not Gerry, but he knew they could not keep him forever, and they do not mind, not really. To lose seems to be in their nature by now. They have themself and that seems to be all. Michael does not mind anymore, though he knows the thing that is not Michael is still angry, and he tries to make it easier to be them. He does not want them to suffer, after all.

They only see the real Gerry, _their_ Gerry, once more. He is dying and they know it, and they go to his side and stay with him. He does not see them, or if he does he does not know that it is them, but they both grieve him together when he is gone, in their own way.

Love is not something they can feel, but loss is, and loss is not so different from love.

**Author's Note:**

> i have a [tumblr!](https://jaysworlds.tumblr.com/)


End file.
